After applying to hundreds of jobs (not an exaggeration!), I managed to join the graduate scheme at Arcadia Group. This is where I began my professional career as well as studying for my Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) qualification. Graduate schemes are good for a career in Finance, and some offer rotational roles (e.g. 3 roles across 3 years). This gives you the opportunity to experience different areas of Finance and whether it is an area you enjoy.

I spent 18 months at Arcadia Group, before moving to Dow Jones where I continued in a Commercial Finance role supporting the Wall Street Journal Europe newspaper’s key stakeholders. I would help provide the information to assess the profitability of the newspaper, which would help make business decisions (e.g. when to run a promotion). I also completed my CIMA qualification. Working at Dow Jones was a great experience but it was where I had decided I wanted a role with less repetitive work.

I joined Accenture in July 2016, in a role that is very interesting and diverse! It is a Corporate Finance role, which shares similarities with Commercial Finance but also has some differences. I work in a team called Corporate Development & Transaction Services (CDTS), on a variety of financial transactions. Furthermore, the role is project based so every day could be different! The CDTS team is a market facing Finance team focused on enabling Accenture’s desire to grow profitably. The team work across a full spectrum of complex high risk deals from client transactions through to ventures and acquisitions. My role in the team is to provide costing, pricing and financial deal shaping support to large and complex client transactions.